By Tiernan Ray

Pacific Crest‘s Jesse Hulsing today reiterates an Outperform rating on shares of enterprise software vendor Qlik Technologies (QLIK) and Tibco (TIBX), and a Sector Perform rating on shares of Tableau Software (DATA), based on “checks” with software resellers that show continued strength in demand for so-called “next-generation business intelligence” software.

Tableau and Qlik are taking business from traditional analytics and visualization software vendors such as SAP AG (SAP) and International Business Machines (IBM), he writes, but Tibco has the most room to improve results in the near term:

Partners noted particular strength in existing customers (a multiquarter trend); expansions more commonly encroaching on incumbent (SAP, IBM, MSTR) BI/reporting use cases; opens up wallet share and could drive M&A 3 QlikView.next product transition a focus area for partners, but too early to have positive or negative impact; expect more details over next month. We expect market momentum to carry through the 2H into 2014: Best LT pick = QLIK; prod. transition carries some risk (likely in 1H14), but we think .next will be a meaningful MT positive and help cement QLIK as multiyear market leader; see upside to $40+; Most NT upside = TIBX; improving execution, conservative ests, and easy comparisons should help drive est upside; upside to low $30s (25x F2014 bull case of $1.25); DATA likely to have meaningful upside to ests, but valuation bakes in much of our bull case.

Hulsing offers a backgrounder on the importance of the category in one slide:

About Tech Trader Daily

Tech Trader Daily is a blog on technology investing written by Barron’s veteran Tiernan Ray. The blog provides news, analysis and original reporting on events important to investors in software, hardware, the Internet, telecommunications and related fields. Comments and tips can be sent to: techtraderdaily@barrons.com.